At the beginning of December a very impressive boxing set of the prog legend Gentle Giant was released. On 30 CDs "Unburied Treasure" not only collects all (remixed) regular albums of the band, but also numerous (partly unreleased) live concerts from all phases of their ten-year history. We talked to frontman Derek Shulman about this unique Christmas present for prog fans.
Shulman was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected success of the box: Even before the official release one day after our conversation, it was already almost sold out. However, despite all his satisfaction, he still stood by his decision to put the band, and with it his musical career, on hold almost 40 years ago.
eclipsed: Who had the idea for this monumental boxing set?
For ten years Gentle Giant kept the progressively oriented part of the rock world in suspense with their extraordinary cosmos of sound. The sextet around the brothers Derek, Phil and Ray Shulman - all of them gifted singers, all of them gifted multi-instrumentalists - was between 1970 and 1980 no experiment in the spectrum of classical music, rock, folk or pop too daring not to get involved with it. These days the sampler "Three Piece Suite" mixed by Steven Wilson has been released, including eleven pieces of the legendary first studio albums "Gentle Giant", "Acquiring The Taste" and "Three Friends".
THE WHO
The Story of Quadrophenia
"'Tommy' changed everything and saved us," Pete Townshend remembers in the introductory essay to the 2011 re-release of "Quadrophenia". Basically, The Who had been a singles band in the sixties; the sudden intellectualization of pop music had posed a new, unexpected challenge to its thought leader. "People suddenly wanted to hear 'serious' music from pop groups.
YES
Between heaven and earth
These days "The Power And The Glory" is the first release in a hopefully long series of new editions of Gentle Giant's albums. In recent years there have been numerous, sometimes half-hearted attempts to bring the works back into the consciousness of prog fans. But now Steven Wilson - after King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Yes - has taken care of probably the most complex of all prog legends and made his remix skills available to her. The result is phenomenal. Suddenly you think you can hear every single one of the numerous instruments that make up a Gentle Giant song. eclipsed spoke to frontman Derek Shulman about the eventful career of a band that has gone their own way unperturbed.
eclipsed: When you started in 1966, you called yourself Simon Dupree & The Big Sound and became a pop band..
